Fine Chess Painting

5 comments

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  Anonymous says:

  April 17, 2007 at 8:12 pm

  The game of chess as a metaphor of love originates from a
  courtly culture and originally bore its characteristics. However, in the course of
  time this image was to be vulgarized. The painting by De Man, from the second
  half of the seventeenth century, is a product with its contents tailored to the more trivial taste of a bourgeois public.’
  De Jongh notes a few
  cliché-like details which in genre painting are frequently applied in the erotic context (the cat looking up to the woman, the string instrument
  hanging from the panelling,
  and the bellows in front of
  the fireplace). These details, added to the meaningful look of the woman, the embarrassed
  man, the informal clothing
  and the open box bed,
  guarantee that the message
  will come across.

• Reply

  

  Anthony says:

  April 17, 2007 at 9:03 pm

  Actually, the man is saying “Oh no! I completely overlooked that Rook sacrifice!” 🙂

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  Izhar Junian says:

  April 18, 2007 at 12:48 am

  “But while she’s looking somewhere else, let me help myself with a piece…”

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  Anonymous says:

  April 18, 2007 at 1:40 pm

  She seems to be looking at us and saying “Hey, come over here, check this move out…” He seems to be saying “Oh, no! Is she going to do what I think she’s going to do?”

  Brad H.

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  XY says:

  April 18, 2007 at 7:48 pm

  Man thinking: She may know her way around the board, but let’s see how she handles a FIREBALL coming right out of my hand.